Gone West

It really was Wendy's suggestion. Lack of ventilation around the pan if the lid is a good fit?

I've just had a thought @vivienz you and Jeremy could try an experiment of leaving the lid up to see if it's a ventilation problem.

I thought that soft water always feels 'slippery'. I notice the difference when we visit relatives in Orpington where the water is hard. We have a Harveys water softener but use hard water for the toilets and don't have a problem with mould. Our concealed cisterns are insulated if that makes any difference.

A friend who converted a large barn had a living room that was open to the rafters and he installed a 5A lighting circuit in conjunction with wall lights. It suited him being able to have floor standing lights in the centre of the large room using floor sockets.

Yes it does seem to be rip off for 1mm thick foam sheeting but underlays always seem overpriced to me. I doubt you could save more than £15 to £20 at the most.

Interesting and shows how much variation there is in what people want. I'm not interested in atmosphere, I just want to be able to see clearly. If I wanted some bling I could add a few LED strips I suppose. For me all this lighting walls etc just produces a lot of shadows. Some friends of ours have a house with 'fancy' lighting and I find it's like scratching around in a cave.

Excellent, that's the neatest installation I've seen.

Originally there was tar bonded gravel onto an asphalt or concrete base. Our neighbours had that laid a couple of years ago. The disadvantage is that on a driveway, the gravel is gradually pulled off the bitumen by the car tyres and you end up with a lot of loose gravel and black bitumen visible. That system was replaced with resin bonded gravel which if laid correctly sticks the gravel to the base far more effectively. The resin bound system mixes the gravel with the resin and the mix is laid around 20mm thick on the base. We had a small area of this type laid at the front of our driveway. This is the best from the point of longevity. There is also self binding gravel which is the easiest to lay but requires more maintenance. The base for our driveway was 200mm compacted type1 and 70mm asphalt with the resin mix laid on top.

In our last Victorian house we had a fifties upgrade which was a small, 8' deep by 4' round solids tank into which everything went. The liquid drained into a much larger square tank about 3000 gallons. When we moved in there was only a manhole cover on the small tank. I later added a cover to the larger tank and a soakaway.

Welcome to the forum and good luck with your new builds. Well done on beating your LPA.

Richard Burbridge do this sort of thing, and maybe others. https://www.wonkeedonkeerichardburbidge.co.uk/richard-burbidge-fb463-reeded-pine-decorative-moulding-28x4mm.html

We use SCS also from Ashford. All the operators we have had have been very knowledgeable.

Yes I know but someone else reading this may not know.

What you say is fine if all you have is a hole in the ground tank. If you've got a treatment plant then you want someone who knows not to shove the sucking pipe down where the air pipe is and break the air pipe.

@Cognis0 Hi and welcome to the forum. As indicated we have a Genvex Combi 185LS which provides us with DHW, ventilation and warm air heating. It is used in conjunction with towel rails in each of the bathrooms and works well for us. This is because our house is small, just under 130m2, and because there are only two occupants. I think it would struggle if the house were much larger. Our house has walls and roof U factors of 0.09 W/m2K and as a result the heating requirement is very low. As Jeremy has already said designing out overheating is the most important element with PH design . We considered PV-T and visited a house with PV-T fitted but were told it wasn't worth the added complexity. Our PH was designed with simplicity of running and maintenance a major factor.

We lived in our bungalow while we built the replacement house in the garden. We have always used the same address throughout the build.

Encon did a good price for Rockwool RW6 slabs.

We had a Trevi Boost in the old bungalow which lasted getting on for ten years without any problems.

Hi Angel, welcome to the forum and good luck with your project. I actually found doing a complete renovation of our last house less stressful than our new build.

That is what I would expect.

I have never understood why your builder said that. Why can't he screw some ties onto the side of the window opening blocks if he feels it's really necessary to tie them in.

I think you would probably lose less sound through the opening if the window is kept to the original size. You can reduce sound loss by secondary glazing or shutters.

It seems to me there could be more potential problems with a metal web joist ground floor than concrete. So I would use concrete.

That type are around 2.5mm thick steel because they are folded so don't need to be thick like a flat bar. They should be supported in the centre until the blockwork has set, especially if a long length, as @Russell griffiths has indicated. If you saw blocks being laid with the lintel unsupported have a word with the builder.

Do you think it's a flat steel bar like I was referring to or something like this. Did you see it being fitted. Catnic Lintel ANG 2400mm